Kevin's Watch

lurch wrote:8. What are the whispers?...paranoia

Sure, everyone experiences paranoia, and on the island that's a given, but there seems to be a consistent phenomena in which different people have heard the whispers without the influence of being told there are whispers. Sayid heard them after talking to Rousseau, but Sawyer heard them another time. There have been others I can't recall.

The one that sticks in my mind is last year. Juliet hears the whispers, and then one of the Others is suddenly standing in the middle of a clearing and gives her a message. The whispers come again and she's gone as quickly.

We already know there are underground warrens. The smoke monster tried to drag Locke into one in Season 1. What if these inaudible sounds are heard because "doors" to the underground are opened? This would imply that the Others have access to caves that allow them to move secretly around the island.

ItisWritten wrote:

lurch wrote:8. What are the whispers?...paranoia

Sure, everyone experiences paranoia, and on the island that's a given, but there seems to be a consistent phenomena in which different people have heard the whispers without the influence of being told there are whispers. Sayid heard them after talking to Rousseau, but Sawyer heard them another time. There have been others I can't recall.

The one that sticks in my mind is last year. Juliet hears the whispers, and then one of the Others is suddenly standing in the middle of a clearing and gives her a message. The whispers come again and she's gone as quickly.

We already know there are underground warrens. The smoke monster tried to drag Locke into one in Season 1. What if these inaudible sounds are heard because "doors" to the underground are opened? This would imply that the Others have access to caves that allow them to move secretly around the island.

AAH!...I understand what you have said...so..let me explain my answers to a degree...I see LOST as. a presentation of reality as seen by a person who has suffered a mental fragmentation..reality as seen by a schizophrenic.or.. a person who has been assigned the label of being schizophrenic...and I Mean, ALL of LOST,,en total..EVERYTHING.

Basically.. LOST picks up where Andre Breton leaves us at the end of the Surreal classic " NADJA"...a news report of a plane disappearing over Isle de Sable..( Black Rock)...the titled character , Nadja, has been hauled off to an insane asylum.

For 4 seasons.. LOST has been like reading the very words of A Breton, Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and other original Surrealists. The Visual Metaphors thru-out the show,,heck start with the close up of the opening eye motif,,are Great Pieces of Surrealism,,as is the dialogue, or writing. It is obvious to me that Surrealism , as a perspective of this show.. is coming down from the Top and indeed transcends all the way down to even Vincent.
As Carlton Fuse ( an exe producer and co-runner of the show) said a couple of seasons ago.." Of course , its all metaphor."

Cagliostro wrote:It seems some of the characters are changing roles in this too. There is an English ad for the show that was a very artful piece with them dancing around the plane wreck, and it started calling the different cast members by, "One of us is a fugitive, one of us is a junkie," etc. So now we have Hurley as the fugitive, Jack is the junkie, Kate is the mother, Sayid is the cold blooded killer...I can't think of more. Anyone?

Also, can anyone else not stand the interaction between Kate and Aaron? It's almost as bad if not worse than the family scenes on Millenium.

Yea.. off Island seems to be a mirror image of early on island..I mean ,,Locke got rid Charlies drugs ..now Ben gets rid of Jacks..just remember a mirror image is backwards...again.. lends to the nightmare dream quality. Classic repeat of motif thru out all seasons.." Are You Crazy?"..No. Hurley isn't crazy, but the conundrum he is in.. is driving him crazy..Kinda like modern man conflicted between his logic and his ...spiritualism...or whatever diametrically opposites that pull a person apart...So.. with that it can be seen that,, yes,, Kate is forcing herself to be a mother.. shes not a natural. Sun is going way outta of her way to get Widmore/Linus..Heck.. even Ana Lucia..." just don't get caught by the Cops..!!.., The dark irony thru-out this opener is some the best Lost Humor Noir ever..I mean. Sawyer looking for a shirt..????? This opener had me lmao!! and thats the point.. the plite of modern man..like Jack asked so woefully,, "How did we get here?"...is pretty freekin funny...The answer is being played on the Island..People live in the Past..True.. you can't change the Past...and thats why folks live there..But Dan.. like the early Renaissance men planted a memory in Des and Des will hopefully be instrumental in bringing the whole lot out of the Dark Age Nightmare. Oxford fits very well in the metaphor. Des and Penny being the Love Couple,," I Love You, I Love You, I will never leave you again" also fits the metaphor. Its about creating a future from your Imagination...not by living in the Past.

Now.. hold on to you boot straps...Is season 5 nothing more than an allegory..on how the TV show LOST came to be.? Creating a future implies breaking the paradigm's of the past..LOST as a TV show has done that.. and succeeded. Now we are into a double mirror image. Kinda like Donaldson and his interior landscape of TC oTC. Surrealism, I Love It!

lurch wrote:

ItisWritten wrote:

lurch wrote:8. What are the whispers?...paranoia

Sure, everyone experiences paranoia, and on the island that's a given, but there seems to be a consistent phenomena in which different people have heard the whispers without the influence of being told there are whispers. Sayid heard them after talking to Rousseau, but Sawyer heard them another time. There have been others I can't recall.

The one that sticks in my mind is last year. Juliet hears the whispers, and then one of the Others is suddenly standing in the middle of a clearing and gives her a message. The whispers come again and she's gone as quickly.

We already know there are underground warrens. The smoke monster tried to drag Locke into one in Season 1. What if these inaudible sounds are heard because "doors" to the underground are opened? This would imply that the Others have access to caves that allow them to move secretly around the island.

AAH!...I understand what you have said...so..let me explain my answers to a degree...I see LOST as. a presentation of reality as seen by a person who has suffered a mental fragmentation..reality as seen by a schizophrenic.or.. a person who has been assigned the label of being schizophrenic...and I Mean, ALL of LOST,,en total..EVERYTHING.

Basically.. LOST picks up where Andre Breton leaves us at the end of the Surreal classic " NADJA"...a news report of a plane disappearing over Isle de Sable..( Black Rock)...the titled character , Nadja, has been hauled off to an insane asylum.

For 4 seasons.. LOST has been like reading the very words of A Breton, Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and other original Surrealists. The Visual Metaphors thru-out the show,,heck start with the close up of the opening eye motif,,are Great Pieces of Surrealism,,as is the dialogue, or writing. It is obvious to me that Surrealism , as a perspective of this show.. is coming down from the Top and indeed transcends all the way down to even Vincent.
As Carlton Fuse ( an exe producer and co-runner of the show) said a couple of seasons ago.." Of course , its all metaphor."

Yes, lurch, I know where you're coming from. You eat up all the symbolism like a spelling champ starved for a challenge and given the word, onomatopoeia.

But sometimes, a whisper is a whisper, and despite the surreal background, the story has been grounded in reality. So I ask again, what if there is a logical explanation for the whispers? And that answer also explains how the Others vanish so well. Is the Temple underground?

ItisWritten wrote:

lurch wrote:

ItisWritten wrote: Sure, everyone experiences paranoia, and on the island that's a given, but there seems to be a consistent phenomena in which different people have heard the whispers without the influence of being told there are whispers. Sayid heard them after talking to Rousseau, but Sawyer heard them another time. There have been others I can't recall.

The one that sticks in my mind is last year. Juliet hears the whispers, and then one of the Others is suddenly standing in the middle of a clearing and gives her a message. The whispers come again and she's gone as quickly.

We already know there are underground warrens. The smoke monster tried to drag Locke into one in Season 1. What if these inaudible sounds are heard because "doors" to the underground are opened? This would imply that the Others have access to caves that allow them to move secretly around the island.

AAH!...I understand what you have said...so..let me explain my answers to a degree...I see LOST as. a presentation of reality as seen by a person who has suffered a mental fragmentation..reality as seen by a schizophrenic.or.. a person who has been assigned the label of being schizophrenic...and I Mean, ALL of LOST,,en total..EVERYTHING.

Basically.. LOST picks up where Andre Breton leaves us at the end of the Surreal classic " NADJA"...a news report of a plane disappearing over Isle de Sable..( Black Rock)...the titled character , Nadja, has been hauled off to an insane asylum.

For 4 seasons.. LOST has been like reading the very words of A Breton, Rene Magritte, Salvador Dali, and other original Surrealists. The Visual Metaphors thru-out the show,,heck start with the close up of the opening eye motif,,are Great Pieces of Surrealism,,as is the dialogue, or writing. It is obvious to me that Surrealism , as a perspective of this show.. is coming down from the Top and indeed transcends all the way down to even Vincent.
As Carlton Fuse ( an exe producer and co-runner of the show) said a couple of seasons ago.." Of course , its all metaphor."

Yes, lurch, I know where you're coming from. You eat up all the symbolism like a spelling champ starved for a challenge and given the word, onomatopoeia.

But sometimes, a whisper is a whisper, and despite the surreal background, the story has been grounded in reality. So I ask again, what if there is a logical explanation for the whispers? And that answer also explains how the Others vanish so well. Is the Temple underground?

Sorry to dissapoint..you ask for logical answer...but LOST is not a show based in any Logic. Matter of fact,, any Logic in this show is an Illusion. Ask Jack..every time he trys to be Logical,, Mr Fix It..it goes to schitt in a handbucket...Logic? I dumped that pair of glasses after the opening minutes of episode 1 season 1..People DO NOT survive a plane coming apart at 30, or 20 or 10 thousand feet. This show is just opposite,, its about the Feel, The Texture,, the Inuitive,,the IMAGINATION. The ONLY reality of LOST that is REAL.. is how the Viewer Feels by the end of episode. That is Your Truth. Again as JJ Abramson said at the onset..Lost was originally conceived as the Ultimate Reality Show.

But.. The Whispers..I say Paranoia,, because every time they are heard, the Losties and who ever..become fearful,,basically frightened out of their wits. Whispers are like,, you are in a social situation,, and a few acquaintentces stand aside and are whispering something..You come over and they disperse...How do you feel? slightly paranoid? Yeaa...Its the frustration of being on the Verge of hearing or understanding but being denied...for lack of clarity...With that you could say the Whisperers are the creators, writers and producers of LOST. uuummm Its possible.. Tunnels.. sure why not..It just doesn't matter to me. The Plot not only makes no rational sense.. it doesn't even TRY to make rational sense. Its about folks who try to make rational sense out of a completely irrational place and experience. Episode after episode,, its neither the Black nor the White thats the point, but the grey matter inbetween, rising above the opposites,,to the Surreal resolution of whatever the conflict is of the episode.(I will say a not always, to that point , because sometimes it takes 2 episodes before a resolution is achieved to some conflicts,, or maybe a whole season.) The word LOST is being applied to the Viewer in many ways.

Its about Mystery itself.. the Mystery of your Imagination,, the unexplored imagination.. so if you say tunnels,, sure,,why not,, until it is made explicitly clear that something else is going on. But like in the recent podcast, C&D said that they will not be anwserering all the unanswered questions. They will be answering questions that are only important to what THey see as important. In other words.. don't expect or demand a hard answer to your tunnel idea. Actually,, the tunnel idea has already been answered.. Ben entered a tunnel to set Smokie on Kemey's butt...so, there you are. But..the Others walked to the Temple,, above ground....Take the answers for what they are worth....as they are,,rather than for what you want them to be. Forget logic.

When the Whispering comes around in a scene..something bad or not so good,, usually follows.. Shannon took a bullet because the Whisperers were spookin Ana Lucia...The whispers heralded the fake Yemi on Eko's butt. When the Losties walked into the Others trap and got taken captive..heralded by the Whisperers..etc etc...So...the Whisperers are heralds..in that they evoke fear which leads to very bad choice and decision. Imean..never has any one said " Hello" Who is there?,,can I be of help? Could you repeat that please, I didn't quite get that,, abit louder thank you..No, its immediately draw the guns and start shooting..the ultimate negation. So,, like alot of things in LOST,, im not taken to defining stuff or things logically,, but see a definition by what it evokes or solicits from the LOSTIES.,,,and or ...myself.

Lurch, no doubt much of what you say is true. However, Lost seems to me a much larger mélange of ideas than just surrealism, from 17th century philosophy to 20th century physics.

Does "Isle de Sable" really mean "Black Rock?" I Googled it, and came up with this:

Sable Island is named for the French word sable, or "sand." The island, comprised of sand bars and sand dunes, and some fresh water ponds, is the surfaced part of a ridge at the edge of the continental shelf, formed by glacial retreat over 15,000 years ago, give or take. The island's size and shape vary widely over time, affected as they are by winds, storms, tides, and currents.

The island first appeared on maps in the early 16th century. Its early names included Fagunda (named not too originally after himself, by João Alvares Fagundes, the person likely to have first named and noted the island); Santa Cruz, Barcelos, and Isola della Rena (rena is Italian for sand). It seems to have been first named Isle de Sable or Sable Island by 1601.

www.sabletrust.ns.ca/islandhistory.htm

In itself, it sounds like a fantastical place, even if it's not what you (or Lost) is talking about:

Gathering both fact and lore about Sable Island, the final fatal port for innumerable ships, the authors integrate the knowledge about this unusual place into an alluring work of descriptive and environmental history. Whoever Sable Island's first visitors were--Norse, Basque, or Portuguese--it was on the map by the 1500s, and, eventually, more than 500 ships were wrecked on its shores. Over time, the authors relate, many stories were told about surviving castaways and abandoned animals; horses running freely there today descend from a herd left in the 1700s. Indeed, Sable Island's mere existence off Nova Scotia is somewhat wondrous because it is incessantly being eroded and is, in effect, a miles-long sand dune that is kept in existence by the battle between the Gulf Stream and the Labrador Current. An evocative portrait of Sable's winds, waves, and tragedies.

www.amazon.com/Sable-Island-Strange-Ori ... 0802714323

lurch wrote:Sorry to dissapoint..you ask for logical answer...but LOST is not a show based in any Logic.

I totally get where you're coming from, so no disappointment. But I wasn't just asking the question of you.

lurch wrote:the Others walked to the Temple,, above ground....

We have not seen the Temple. We've seen a few gathering places, but after Ben told Richard to take everyone to the Temple, we didn't see them at all until after Ben signalled them to intercept Kemey's group.

I can't disagree with you about the surrealism in Lost, but there have been logical (in the context of the show) explanations to several questions, such as how the plane crashed. I have expectations based on the progression of the plot over the last 4 years. As much as you enjoy the symbolism, I enjoy logical speculation.

The only thing I object to is your certainty that only the surrealism matters. If that was true, they'd have lost me 3 years ago. (Twin Peaks became a hopeless mess to me in the second season.) Face it, the producers of Lost have found a way to cater to both the logical and the surreal.

Lurch, no doubt much of what you say is true. However, Lost seems to me a much larger mélange of ideas than just surrealism, from 17th century philosophy to 20th century physics.


Have you read " Nadja"?? Breton bounces around from A to Z and back again..or even better , his last book Arcanum 17,,all over history and back..Point being ,, the very attribute " from 17th century philosophy to 20th century physics...EXACTLY!..thats the free association Breton style.Thats what Breton does in his novels. He alludes constantly..So,, YES..even Breton's Style is reflected in LOST. He makes a point in Nadja about loving to visit the flea market..because never knowing what will be found there and the juxtaposition of the incongruent is constantly there,,Its not the items themselves. alone,, but in their mix of what they are with that becomes fascinating to Breton,,pretty much like Lost's placement of the books, records, video, movies, etc with whatever is going on in the scene or episode. Melange of Ideas, Exactly Right! and its the connectivity amongst them that is to be grasped.

Just as it is with LOST it is with Bretons writing,,He takes the reader all over the place in a constant cascade of seemingly unassociated places, observations. happenings, dialogues,,,and then in the last chapter,,he ties it all together and the reader comes away with a understanding of what " Surrealism" is..He literally has the reader experience Surrealism, with out knowing it ,,and finally brings it all together for his Point...Then the reader goes back and re reads it and goes.. ahhhaaa! now I see what hes getting at.. the mystery becomes solved. Some of his critics found his style maddening.
...Sounds alot like the show we are talking about.

As far as Isle de Sable..The Isle you have googleed,,and even the Isle Breton refered to..if they are the same,, and lets assume that they are...in todays english still comes off as Black Island or even Black Rock,,which has been been alluded to in ship name and actual Black Boulders in various scenes of LOST..Lost is written in English for english speakin audience..Sable is a dark, black reference. Wha it means in French or Italian means little to the poetic license being applied. Name or not, the rest of the Info on Isle de Sable,, is fascinating and applicable to LOST. That Breton ends Nadja with a plane disappearing over it,, and Lost begins,,with a Plane crashing on a wild and crazy Island..Its there if you want to. There is a lot more there if you want to..But just like Surrealism itself..its a solo journey..Its your Imagination that awaits you...not mine.

Suggested readings include.. Nadja,,What is Surrealism..Magnetic Field Lines..Humor Noir.. Arcanum 17..etc etc..etc..also, anything you find on Rene Magritte ( interviews and reviews),,and to a lesser degree the early work of Salvador Dali..

The only thing I object to is your certainty that only the surrealism matters. If that was true, they'd have lost me 3 years ago. (Twin Peaks became a hopeless mess to me in the second season.) Face it, the producers of Lost have found a way to cater to both the logical and the surreal.

On that point I disagree...I see the producers doing a slick campaign in keeping it surreal,,in using the e-marketing techniques little used ever before. LOST websites are all over the web. At inception " The Fuselage" site had the writers, and actors visiting there and interaction was common, until it became clear that a " perspective" was being enforced by self picked moderators,, of which the perspective had little to do with what the show was about or going to..Read as very "sacrosanct" and cliqish,,talk about a Temple!!!,,but due its not opened minded view held by the deep worshipers,,well today..its a bust,,The actors and writers stopped going " there" long ago. With abc.com's Lost website today,,becoming the main hub of Virtual marketing,,weekly podcasts where questions are asked, but seldom answered in a straight logical way,,etc etc..Point I'm trying to make is..The Mystery,, The Unknown,,has been fostered, Peoples Theories,,have been encouraged..The INTERACTION of audience members with each other and with the Producers on the Web and at conventions has been encouraged,,yet the Mystery has been maintained..Mystery,, the unanswered questions..have become a character of the show just like Locke or Jack or Kate.And it is manipulated skillfully in the E-world efforts of marketing.

Also.. you bring up that they explained how the plane crashed..I guess it depends on which season you watched.. Season 1 had the plane at 30 thousand feet..okay maybe 20 thousand feet..above the clouds then in the clouds.when it came apart .but in season 3..the plane is like 10 thousand feet maybe as low as 5 thousand feet when it came apart..almost clear skies..Point is..even the point of coming apart has been presented as subjective. and aaaaaa.. the idea that a electromagnetic pulse made it come apart..well.. its been thoroughly proven,,if you are a logical scientific kinda guy,, that the energy required for a emp to reach up to that distance and have things come apart..would also make the basic molecules of a human being.. come apart.. So much for logic and science.

Don't get me wrong.. have fun with this show. Its meant to have fun with. But if it stops being fun cuz none of your theories or questiions are working out or answered.. don't blame the show,,take alook at your self first.
As C& D put it just last week..We are going to answer questions,, but only questions that we think are important to the show. In other words.. conform to Us,, rather than them conforming to the audience.

‘After What He Did To That Poor Girl??’ Herc Declares Tonight’s LOST One Of The Best Ever!!
I'm giddy just reading that subject line.

And I think I know who Faraday's mom turns out to be.

H- Bombs and Widmore as a young Other? Miles' power display was rad and Faraday's responsible for the redhead's death? Good episode, but was over too quickly for me...what was Desmond's clue that the woman in the bed wasn't Faraday's mom? I must have missed that. Who was the girl Other? The same lady who warns Ben?

danlo wrote:H- Bombs and Widmore as a young Other? Miles' power display was rad and Faraday's responsible for the redhead's death? Good episode, but was over too quickly for me...what was Desmond's clue that the woman in the bed wasn't Faraday's mom? I must have missed that. Who was the girl Other? The same lady who warns Ben?

Widmore as an Other was definitely a surprise, as was the fact that Daniel scrambled the girl's brain. The woman in the bed couldn't have been Daniel's mother because he did that to her 3 years ago, and she's not nearly old enough to be his mother, plus the lady's sister didn't act as if she was a relative of Daniel. I think Daniel's mother may end up being the "ring lady" who understands Desmond's destiny (And told Ben last week he only had 70 hours to get everyone back to the island)

I didn't get a sense that Daniel is responsible for Charlotte's sickness, we saw last year that some people can't time travel because it gives them nosebleeds and scrambles their brain. However, now that we're time travelling, to before Rousseau arrived on the island, I wonder if the sickness she spoke of in S1 is what Charlotte (and a couple people from last season, including Desmond who got better thanks to Daniel) has now. Not sure Charlotte's gonna die as of last night

Spoiler

spoiler says a death in ep 4 or 5, and this was only ep 3

I'm always surprised--and annoyed--when the characters on Lost don't share what they know. The lack of communication has always bothered me--everybody's damn secrets. It's a consistent plot device in a lot of movies and TV that's a constant irritant. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

So, when Desmond sees the lady in the bed and hears her symptoms, he must make the connection to his own from The Constant. And yet he immediately withdraws and doesn't offer any hope. The fact that he found a way out of the same loop, may not be a cure for the other lady, but wouldn't it be good for them to know?

I think Desmond found a way out -before- his brain melted. What good would that due this woman in a coma?

wayfriend wrote:I think Desmond found a way out -before- his brain melted. What good would that due this woman in a coma?

I don't think she's in a coma, the guy was spoon feeding her, and her sister said Teresa comes and goes (yesterday she was talking to her father who's been dead for a couple of years).

Having said that, does Desmond know that holding onto his precious memory is what cured him of his Time Travelling allergy? I'm not sure, but, certainly Daniel knows, so he should have at least tried to help Charlotte

Well.. if ya wanted an episode that had answers,,Jughead was definitely the one. Heck,,how was it that the Others knew so much about the Losties? Why , half of'em had already been there!

Creating a future was what this allegory of the Cold War Era episode was about, for me. Congrats to Penny and Des for the demonstration. Of course Locke is trying to create a future too,,but in usual Locke style,, he asks everyone else how to do it,,rather than look inward. I can see a Locke meltdown moment coming where he rants against the white flash. And of course Faraday creates a future with " bury the bomb.. just bury the bomb..alls you have to do is bury the bomb." I suspect the bomb became the power source at the Island Power Plant..explaining Dan and Charolettes know how there..he also made a classic statement,,that speaks of the larger picture that was also emphasized by the Love Couple Des and Penny...When asked if he was on a suicide mission by Richard..Dan said.. no, because he was sitting next to the woman he Loved. The insanity of the Cold War Era on display there. Mutual Assured Destruction as a Policy put in place by Governments ...was/is more than insanely MAD.

So, Char needs a constant..but we know so little about her as she comes across as an independent one. There's a Lost Twist being set up.

And yea,,the motifs that have ran thru all the previous season still have legs in season 5. The " interrupted dialogue" is back to irritate It is Written I see. " Ethan Shot me" was an answer that we knew,,but the Losties don't. Hows that for a reversal? Again, the Mirror Image quality of this Time Travel business is fascinating. " Crazy" had its reserved moment in dialogue true to course...And this introduction of Latin in dialogue..a dead language,,from the past..that was also a determiner of being an Other...a not so subtle association there of the orientation of the Others. Again,,the idea of going forward, creating a future.. creating a future that will place them All at the Time and Place necessary to be united with the O6 seems the immediate thrust...Yea..seems to me LOST and FR have ALOT in common.

~My Lost Theory~

This is Lost in a nutshell. Hurley is the the future end result of all the characters, and through their paths they all meld into him in the end; due to their bad pasts and terrible deeds they become one, monstrous-fat crazy guy.

So basically Hurley is the keystone to the Lost arch.

Why else does he see the numbers?

He IS the Island

Hurley, six letters, Island six letters.

Lost four letters, Hugo four letters.

Reyes five letters, Jacob five letters.

God loves you as He loved Jacob

Since Hurley is the manifestation of Jacob, God will look over him throughout the series, and he will survive to become the island's spirit. Also--also--Hurley is the one who saw Jacob when even Locke couldn't. Obviously, Jaco is a manifestation of Hurley's mind--the mind that made the island and all the people who become him.

Why else is he seeing all the dead people? He made them up! They aren't real. None of the characters are real. They are all a solipsistic delusion created by Hurley, as is the entire manifestation of the island. In essence, Lost is the spiritual struggles of Hugo (four letters, remember) and how he overcomes them.

So, Mira Furlan was 51 when the series first started airing (Sept 7, 1955). Michael Emerson is exactly a year older (Sept 7, 1954) [according to IMDB, last I checked Wikipedia showed them born the same year too]

Jack declared Ben's xray was that of a 40 year old man, and now we have a younger Danielle, who's pregnant and can't be more than 25, therefore is she supposed to only be 40 +/- in S1?

Are we just supposed to accept the characters of Ben and Danielle are a good 10-15 years younger than the actors? Is something causing them to age prematurely, or are we supposed to ignore it?

And then of course we have Danielle asking Sayid "Has it really been that long", in regards to her being on the island 16 years?

Thoughts, explanations?

I don't see anything there. Sometimes they give the ages of characters different from the actors. I wouldn't put too much faith in facts outside of the fictional universe, such as how old actor A or B is. Then again, this is Lost and they can run with anything; it may indeed be something to do with time travel. If Alpert can do it, I suspect Ben has some knowledge as well.

If that was a young Widmore on the island, was that a young Mom Faraday walking around with the rifle?

Also... the refresher episode reminds me that, from Richards point of view, gets a compass from Locke, and then years later visits Locke as a young boy and shows him the compass. He says he grooms their leaders from a young age, and then meets lock at his young age. I think that fits together well. Shows that they planned some of this a while back.